Practical strategies for the role of digital in your business

Content distribution strategy

We often read the slogan “content is king’. Whilst it is certainly a critical piece of the puzzle, on its own, it does not mean much.

Yet, many businesses focus the majority of their marketing dollars on creating fabulous content and leave too little to allow for that content to be shared.

In practice, you are likely to have some sort of content strategy which gets given legs by a distribution strategy. The content you develop or create need to be released into the world, right?

The content I refer to can be split into media you buy, and media you manage or own. The distribution of that content the results int media you have earned.

Media you Buy

You may be spending money on paid media; banner ads, display ads, Google Adwords etc. All these efforts will drive people to a website or any other space you manage, like your facebook page.

Media you Own

Media you own are all the ‘spaces; on the web that you control. Your website, your social media pages, your (micro) blogs, video channels etc. You should of course spend money on these assets. The content you created will often live in some, or all of these spaces.

Media you Earn

Media you earn refers to all the places on the web, where people talk about you. This is the most powerful space to be in, as it naturally invokes trust. We tend to believe peer reviews over a little sales man shouting at you from the sideline of your google search results page.

So, now the question is… how do you divide your marketing budget?

The easiest way, is to spend the bulk of your money on what you can control, i.e. your content strategy, which covers your bought and owned media channels. But the boys are separated from the men in your earned space. This deserves a far larger chunk of your budget then it probably gets at the moment. Its the earned space that invokes trust and fuels the overall conversation.

Content Distribution

The mantra you read everywhere is “content is king”. But content that nobody talks about may be great but is ultimately invisible. Your job is to create great content and then distribute it as widely as you can. Make sure you create content that people can easily share with their friends. For example; you may have a very creative banner ad and more than 10,000 people click through to your website,… and that is where their journey ends. What a missed opportunity this is! No sharing? no ‘liking’? no tweeting? No conversation? You get the picture right?

Conversation is king.

So make sure you spend a large potion of your marketing dollars on a distribution strategy. The rise of social media has given consumers a powerful voice. Use those voices, as together they can make far more noise than you ever can.